I have the same scam going on right now for a motorcycle I was trying to sell on Craigslist. It’s weird, because he changes from Paypal to sending a check randomly. When he asked me for my name and addess to send the check to, I gave him the contact info for my state’s attorney general. Ha!
The other funny thing is that it is a pretty basic scam: he sends me the purchase amount, plus more for shipping, but I am to send the shipping money directly to the shipper (who is him, clearly). But the language is so absolutely garbled that if I were falling for the scam, I would have absolutely no idea what to do.
Tell him no problem, but you will be out of town for two weeks after depositing the check. When you get back, you will ship him the item immediately. That should be quite sufficient to clear.
Or tell him you have to deposit in a Swiss bank and it takes extra time to clear (the mountains and all). Would he mind waiting a month?
Reason being they can copy and past the same bait across a wide range of listings with minimal effort - or can perhaps sub out the initial contacts to someone who doesn’t even need to speak.English